


All I Can Give You

by pathsofpassion



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Brotherly Love, Gen, Holmes reminisce, Mycroft Meddles, teen!lock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-23
Updated: 2013-01-23
Packaged: 2017-11-26 16:14:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/652111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pathsofpassion/pseuds/pathsofpassion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A brief one-shot glimpse into Mycroft and Sherlock's adolescence and relationship. Based on an artwork linked in the notes. Is not Mylock.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All I Can Give You

**Author's Note:**

> Based on an artwork by [youmightaswellcallmesmith](http://youmightaswellcallmesmith.tumblr.com/) which is found [here](http://youmightaswellcallmesmith.tumblr.com/image/16083239548).
> 
> Update: the artist's blog has since been deleted. I spoke to them at the time of publishing and they were fine with me writing fic and linking it to their art, so I'm going to link you to the art where it is still on my blog. I hope they're okay; if anyone has heard from youmightaswellcallmesmith.tumblr.com, please let me know. [Art inspiration link](http://pathsofpassion.tumblr.com/post/41114116850/i-might-have-to-write-a-fic-about-this/). 
> 
> That image gave me feels, and I had to write about them. Please look at it before reading, if you don't mind - I think it gives this much better context. 
> 
> Constructive criticism is heartily, heartily welcomed - I want to get better. Enjoy!

Years had passed since the last time Mycroft could remember holding his brother. Like all data regarding Sherlock, the last time he’d cradled the younger boy in his arms was etched in his memory, flawless and crisp as the day it happened. Sherlock had been nine; he’d been sixteen. A young man instead of a boy, home from Eton, already coming to the attention of certain interested parties because of his unique abilities. Nearly unique. He was better at people; Sherlock was better with science. Sibling rivalry, back when it had been safe. Not harmless, not always even fun – not for the Holmes brothers. They’d learnt the meaning of pain at painfully young ages. But at least in those years their clashes hadn’t been bitter, spiteful, hadn’t meant to wound in love.

Sherlock, age nine, was a spindly creature – a pale boy composed almost entirely of light eyes and dark hair and the passion to run _everywhere_. The cause had been a simple one; he’d fallen, scraped his knee. Mycroft had been reading a book under a tree on the property, ostensibly watching his brother and ostensibly understanding why reading outside was so romanticized. He recalled failing at both occupations. Mycroft had just determined that reading outside led to bugs and leaves and _invasions_ of his mental privacy when Sherlock fell into the stream and banged his knee up on some rock.

Even then, the small face had hidden pain. Burying weakness was a skill hammered into them both practically from the cradle. Mummy and Daddy didn’t have time or patience for crying, screaming, noisy children.

But Mycroft heard the impact, the sharp intake of breath into growing lungs, and abandoned his book to rush to Sherlock’s side. No one was about, the day a rare freedom from caretakers and minders, and so he hadn’t hesitated, hadn’t needed to restrain affection or brotherly care as he picked the small boy up in his arms and held him close.

He’d never been good at comforting, exactly, even as a young man, but for Sherlock he could at least hold the boy, murmur soothing words, carry the half-soaked form out of the water and onto the soft, warm grass of the stream’s bank. Mycroft set the lad down and tsked, fussing over the wounds as he cleaned them with a sterile moist towelette from his pocket. (One _always_ carried such towelettes when one was minding Sherlock). Sherlock had put up with the fussing for a minute or two, and then the angular jaw had firmed. “You don’t have to be so… _fluttery_ , Mycroft. I know it’s not that bad.” A quiver from Sherlock’s chin. “It just… hurts.”

Mycroft pretended not to see the brightness of unshed tears in the boy’s eyes, and finished his caretaking in quiet competence. He had, after all, an awful _lot_ of experience patching up a bleeding younger brother. The wound required only two small plasters (carried in the same coat pocket as the towelettes) and a pat on the uninjured shin. “There. Good as new.” It sounded like the sort of thing one _said_. Mycroft believed a great deal in doing the sorts of things one does, in any given situation.

Sherlock had nodded, but abandoned his playing (exploring and experimenting, he called it) to return to the house. No other hugs were instigated during the remainder of his holiday; theirs was not a physically demonstrative family, in the manner of _not_ meant by the statement ‘a gun is not a toy’.

The next time Mycroft came home from school was after finishing secondary. Two years spent away, and his brother had turned into a cranky adolescent with a biting tongue. Not that their rift was all Sherlock’s fault, oh no, he wouldn’t absolve himself of culpability. Mycroft had been distant and cold, unused to the familiarity of brotherhood after he’d just spent so much time _growing up_ , and they were always at loggerheads. Sherlock was in a snit when Mycroft wanted to _try_ to recapture their childhood closeness; Mycroft was busy or distracted or put off when the younger Holmes was in a good enough mood to make one of his limited, hobbling overtures. Sherlock was intentionally a nuisance, and he’d… well, he’d expected too much of Sherlock, too quickly. There’d been shouting, and harsher words than their distant parents ever used, and tantrums and petty feuds.

By the time he set out for university, the pair of them weren’t speaking. Weren’t speaking in absolute _volumes_.

The silence had continued through six Easters and seven Christmases. Through Mycroft’s graduation from university and Sherlock’s entrance into Harrow (and subsequent expulsion from Harrow, entrance into Winchester, expulsion from Winchester, and entrance into Eton). Through Mycroft’s unpublicized graduation in his more subtle education as well, and his acceptance of that first minor position in the British government.

Through, in fact, today. Today, in early February – a ghastly time to be at Eton, surrounded by lovesick boys – when he received a report from the asset keeping an eye on Sherlock. Mycroft was twenty-four now, and rising fast in the circles he preferred, though he’d carefully seemed to languish in his same public posting for the last two years. Family was important, even worrisome, troublesome family you weren’t speaking to, and the first thing he’d done with resources of his own was put a watch over his younger brother.

He found Sherlock curled up in a corner of a darkened classroom, a tell-tale sniffling noise all the clearer for the dim light. His breath caught in his throat; so had Sherlock’s at the sound of the door opening and closing, if the muffled, choked gasp he’d heard was any indication. Right now his brother was just a balled-up form in the corner, obscured by a coat that was too big for him, and Mycroft wondered if he should not have come. If this would turn into a fight, if Sherlock would never want him to see this, if he should leave now so they could both pretend –

“M-mycroft?” That was not his brother’s voice, surely, not that deep and broken thing? Setting his umbrella carefully against the door, Mycroft took another step into the room.

This was apparently enough for the younger Holmes. With a rush of speed and clattering feet, the lanky seventeen-year-old flung himself into his brother’s hold with abandon. His hair was some ill-fated shade of blond, for heaven _knew_ what reason, and he was crying and leaning against Mycroft like he _needed_ him and Mycroft couldn’t do anything, anything, but hold the young man and keep quiet company while his sibling wept.

They stayed like that, clinging to each other, for a long time.

 

He never did learn why Sherlock was crying that day, though he suspected particularly cruel pranking and that bleached hair to be part of cause. And the younger Holmes quickly deduced the existence of his shadows from Mycroft’s unexpected presence, and minded their presence immensely, and the Holmes’s sibling relationship never did really get close again. But the silence was ended, and there was care behind all their barbs and games and sparring, and Mycroft found himself curiously content.


End file.
